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Bosnia 111-118 England
A triumphant win as we defeated Bosnia to put ourselves in pole position to qualify for the second round. Our destiny is now in our own hands, but we have three tough games left so it's still all to play for.

Analysing which way Bosnia would go was difficult. With several key players on their side in great shape, they had the option to attack in any way, but I always felt they would opt to go balanced or outside, due to the game shape of our guards, and use one of the Iso offences or Motion, hence my normal GDP guess, which proved to be incorrect. Offensively we didn't have many options with several key players low on game shape. I did expect an Outside Box from Bosnia and with their SB-bigs, Sare and Hercegovac, being in low game shape, I felt that was the best way to attack them. We managed to cause them serious issues inside with Harris, Albrighton and Kanjilal all scoring efficiently and the Bosnian bigs in foul trouble. I do think we were slightly fortunate to win this one, with the FT differential being so big and with how few turnovers we had, but the ratings and +/- suggest we were the better side.

Next week we face Norway who gave today's opponents Bosnia a tough game, so I expect the same for us next week.

In the other groups, there were some interesting results as Spain edged out Belgium to take control of Pool-E. Portugal lost to Slovakia, making the game against Israel next week crucial and Moldova pulled off a shock win against Russia.

England 111-85 Norway
A comfortable win takes us to 4-1 with two difficult games left to play! A huge couple of weeks is coming up.

Norway were hit with poor game shape, which made this game a lot easier than what it could have been. They tend to line up with four outside orientated guys and one big, leaning towards a balanced or outside offence, so my immediate thoughts were to use a 3-2 zone and protect the perimeter. We did a decent enough job of doing this, but with Buchan and Harris both lacking SB, it did allow a fair few easy second chance points as they managed to gobble up 14OR's. Offensively we were efficient shooting 51% and dishing out 25 assists, with Kanjilal top scoring with 18 points.

Next week we face up against Serbia who are eliminated after Latvia produced a 4th quarter comeback. The Serbs have nothing to play for now, apart from pride and ranking points but they will present a tough test for us. The dynamic of who'll qualify alongside Czechia has swung back in favour of Bosnia. We are ahead by +30PD, but with the Bosnians facing Montenegro next week, they should climb above us with one to play. Whilst Latvia aren't mathematically eliminated, they would need to overturn a huge PD deficit.

In other groups, Belgium look hot favourites to qualify from Pool-E after their win against Romania and Germany losing to Switzerland. In Pool-D Greece got an important win against Slovenia keeping them in contention to qualify and Israel edged past Portugal which looks to have secured their passage to the second round.

Serbia 78-62 England
A game which promised so much ended in grave disappointment and ended our hopes of qualifying for the second round in back to back competitions. Everyone in the game of BuzzerBeater knows that Serbia always deploy two SB bigs and a 3-2 zone, making them tough to attack, but with the crop of players we had available to us I decided to try exploit the lack of OD on their bigs using Low Post but it failed dramatically with Serbia dominating the game from start to finish. I did think it was possible Serbia would go for a CT and that left us vulnerable as it wasn’t an option for us, with Latvia at our final game. Taking the ratings and PP100 into consideration, maybe that extra use of enthusiasm made the difference and meant it was always going to be a challenge to beat a team that made the Consolation tournament finals.

Latvia 132-120 England
After the loss of Serbia, this game meant very little in terms of jeopardy but was one that would have been nice to win and finish the season in third place. Instead, we were dominated on the rebounds and that felt the deciding factor in the game as it could have gone either way. Latvia had more enthusiasm than us so I expected it to be difficult but a disappointing result to end the campaign with. We were limited in options offensively due to some managers being unable to manage game shape at key points in the season.

Overall, finishing 5th is extremely disappointing and I take sole responsibility for the poor season. Ultimately we were drawn in a group against a host nation and then three really strong European teams, so qualification was always going to be difficult. A key factor in our demise was the loss of one of our greatest ever national players in Jonathan Kemp. The double OD drop he suffered early into the season left us limited in offence. We say goodbye to the legend who finishes his international career 2nd in the all-time scoring charts with 2363 points in 127 games. Throughout periods of the season we’ve also had some key players in poor shape, particularly in key weeks which has unsettled the balance of the squad, but as I said earlier, my tactical choices for some games was also poor and ultimately it’s my job to make sure I maximise the use of the crop of players we have.

If anyone has any questions, suggestions or observations, please feel free to drop them in this forum or message me personally. It’s now a time for recuperation and testing with the squad to make sure we’re best prepared for next season. We have some exciting talent coming through, so I hope to see those players grow and enhance the crop of players we have available to use now.

Last edited by js8 at 2/18/2025 6:17:22 PM